VPILF

[Lusipher]

Cept its the truth, old man. None of that was up there when I made my post. He went back and redid his post.

[Zelknolf]

The country was actually founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, which was decidedly anti-Christian, meaning anti-organized religion.

Anti-organized religion, yes, but I think that anti-Christian isn't very fair to the Enlightenment (unless you mean anti-Christian-institutions, in which case the following is pretty durn moot.). Quite a number of Deists in the prominent thinkers of the Enlightenment. Granted, the Deists were extremely unfond of the standard fare variety of Christianity and vehemently opposed its organization (often worshipping in settings that I would compare more to a book club meeting than a mass) and took an atypical (for the time) stance on the presence/influence of the divine (namely a stance of 'Yeah, He made it. But then he stopped messing with it. Like a watch maker: only has to make the gears right and set them in motion.') and had extremely different values when it came to things like sexuality, marraige, property, conversion, and salvation (Franklin does a fair job describing on the first two - especially his writings about the value of an elderly mistress; have to rummage for the latter three.)

The group did, however, preserve a healthy quantity of the values introduced in the New Testament. The ideas of love/acceptance for mankind, assisting neighbors when in need, resisting authority when it is misusing power, and viewing virtue as a personal quest not to be imposed on others were all quite popular. It just doesn't look very Christian when the idea of "Christian" were groups that still thumped Leviticus and killed women for wearing pants and men for being gay.


btw, Cipher, the Puritans we associate with ye olde fleeing from religious persecution were persecuted just as hard by the other Protestants. They were very unpopular through Europe. Started with them trying to make Puritanism the national religion and vandalizing Catholic and other Protestant churches in a few countries and came to a head when they were the only group to ever execute an English king. (time lag worth noting there; Mayflower was 1620 and Charles I was executed in 1649. They weren't quite universally-hated when they started shipping off to America.) I do think it weakens the case that America "always was" a religious nation; less of a "left to practice their religion peacefully" and more of a "were losing the fight against displays of wealth in religious ceremony and ran away."

[NickD]

See the thing is he had none of that put up in his text when I wrote what I did. Thats a constant with Mulu. Always going back and editing his posts. He had none of that posted before, but decided to go back after the fact.

Right, he made all that research and posted all that information in a cohesive fashion, within in a matter of less than two minutes after your childish comment, JUST to spite you.

Geez Danubus, you're starting to sound like hateface/PD.

Last edited by Mulu on 27 Sep 2008 05:29; edited 1 time in total

Posted: 27 Sep 2008 05:27 Post subject:

...

Well, he did edit the post after Lusipher made his post. When he researched it isn't really relevant, why he made the change isn't really relevant, either.

[White Warlock]

Actually, considering the extent of editing to the post, it wasn't after, as much as it was during. I.e., he was editing it before and while Lusipher made his childish post.

But, i do agree. It doesn't matter if it is before, during, or after... what matters is the content, and that Dan's post consisted of sticking his tongue out and calling Mulu a poo poo head.










So... Mulu, is it true? Are you a poo poo head?

[Veilan]

Dan's post consisted of sticking his tongue out and calling Mulu a poo poo head.










So... Mulu, is it true? Are you a poo poo head?

I think you can answer that by yourself .

[Mulu]

See the thing is he had none of that put up in his text when I wrote what I did. Thats a constant with Mulu. Always going back and editing his posts. He had none of that posted before, but decided to go back after the fact.

I'll give him the benefit of a doubt that we crossed posts. Took me about 10 minutes to get all that up, but he did post before my final edit.

I edit a lot for quote errors, spelling, etc. Nothing nefarious about it.

Heck, I edited this post. Twice now. It only displays an edit if someone posts after you.

[hollyfant]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0kGc6UEGVc

[Killthorne]

~Killy~

[White Warlock]

excellent cartoon there killt

[fluffmonster]

I continue to maintain that Clinton's ability to get a surplus was greatly enhanced by the unprecedented economic growth, and thus tax revenue growth, during most of his term. The dissolution of Welfare in 1996 certainly didn't hurt I suspect. Let's check...the St. Louis Fed FRED database will be our guide...

Nominal (not corrected for inflation) Federal Government Budget Balance:



Budget Deficit stayed pretty constant under Reagan, took a header under Bush the Better, immediately improved under Clinton, fell off a cliff in the first term of Bush the Worse (typical of times of war) before coming under some modicum of control at the beginning of the second term...until another cliff. The relevant eras of relatively high economic growth are the second term of Reagan and the second term of Clinton. What about revenues exactly though?

Nominal Federal Government Receipts:



Steady growth except for the two big financial crises...the dot.com bust, and now. Eye-balling it, looks like revenue growth was a little higher under Clinton. Not enough to say decisively though. What about spending?

Nominal Government Expenditures:



Nominal growth in spending slowed under Bush the Better and stayed constant under Clinton, before zooming for the heavens under Bush the Worse (consistent with a large-scale military commitment). The differences between the administrations are more stark if we look at the numbers in real terms...

Real Government Expenditures:



Bush the Better was able to hold it steady in real terms. The only recent administration that saw reductions in real spending is Clinton's.

The message is pretty clear (not the part about me being wrong though...ignore that bit). Republicans are the party of tax-and-spend, not Democrats. Or more factually accurate, they are the party of spend without paying for it.

[HATEFACE]

The country was actually founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, which was decidedly anti-Christian, meaning anti-organized religion.

I take issue with how you twist words.

It would be far more accurate to say that the founders had a religious enlightenment philosophy which was decidedly anti-catholicism, meaning anti-catholicism rather than organized religion in general.

Danubus is right. Mxlm, Whitey, and Mulu. The Three Stooges of modern 'progressivism.'

[edit: inflammatory - kmj]

[Mulu]

meaning anti-catholicism rather than organized religion in general.

They didn't have any love for the Church of England either kiddo, and reading their writings on the topic it was pretty obvious their dislike even extended to non-Christian religions like Islam and Hinduism, though their most acerbic comments were reserved for Christianity, Catholic and otherwise.

[ç i p h é r]

I continue to maintain that Clinton's ability to get a surplus was greatly enhanced by the unprecedented economic growth, and thus tax revenue growth, during most of his term. The dissolution of Welfare in 1996 certainly didn't hurt I suspect. Let's check...

...


The message is pretty clear (not the part about me being wrong though...ignore that bit). Republicans are the party of tax-and-spend, not Democrats. Or more factually accurate, they are the party of spend without paying for it.

That's a meaningless generalization. Republicans won majority in Congress in the 1990's by running on a platform of fiscal conservatism. The budget was subsequently balanced. Since Bush came to office and brought in his "compassionate conservatism" platform, fiscal discipline has completely eroded.

Balancing the budget boils down to who's running government and what their real priority is going to be. It doesn't magically happen on its own.

[fluffmonster]

Doesn't seem so meaningless to me. Presidents have and usually use the power of veto. This is precisely what Clinton did...he vetoed budgets from the "fiscally conservative" republican congress, the public laid blame on congress, and congress buckled. If you want to all of the sudden say the president is irrelevant and its all congress, its up to you to put together the timeline of congressional power (taking account of margin of majority) and correlate it to the facts. So far, the trend changes track *very* well with presidential terms.

Your retort amounts to waving facts away. Surely you can do better.

[HATEFACE]

Doesn't seem so meaningless to me. Presidents have and usually use the power of veto. This is precisely what Clinton did...he vetoed budgets from the "fiscally conservative" republican congress, the public laid blame on congress, and congress buckled. If you want to all of the sudden say the president is irrelevant and its all congress, its up to you to put together the timeline of congressional power (taking account of margin of majority) and correlate it to the facts. So far, the trend changes track *very* well with presidential terms.

Your retort amounts to waving facts away. Surely you can do better.

Blame both of em really.